Cranberry farmer Luke Decoubert has finally found enough honey bees to pollinate their vines this year. It was not just an achievement, he said, and he worries it could become even more difficult to achieve in the coming years.
“We talk to beekeepers and they say [they] “There are a lot of deaths in the winter, especially this year,” he said.
The beekeeper, who usually rents out Decubber, expects to lose about half of his hives this year.
Decoubert puts it simply: without bees, his farm Canneberges Bécancour cannot survive.
“If there is no animal or someone to pollinate [the flowers]we will not have fruit, ”said the former banker, who now devotes all his time to his farm of about 160 hectares.
Quebec cranberry farmer Luke Decoubert picks cranberries left on a vine in the winter. The plants begin to bloom in June, and the spicy fruits will be ready for picking in October. (CBC)
The farm, located in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, Que., A small town about two hours northeast of Montreal, relied on local pollinators when it began nearly 30 years ago.
But there are no longer enough local pollinators to cover the farm’s expanding footprint, so like many other fruit growers, Decubber is forced to hire honey bees to pollinate small white flowers that eventually turn into cranberries. .
Every summer he rents about 1,000 hives, which he places around the swamps where cranberries grow.
Bees are an essential part of the food supply chain
The region where Decubber is located is sometimes called the cranberry capital of Canada and is one of the largest fruit producers in the world.
The industry brings in hundreds of millions of dollars and provides hundreds of jobs. But if the bee population continues to decline, it could be in danger.
Low bee populations are a concern for Canadian farmers
Canadian farmers are worried that bee populations damaged by mites, climate change and pesticides will mean poor harvests this season. 2:06
“If we don’t have bees, I don’t think we’ll survive,” Decuber said. “We absolutely need them.”
Paul Kelly, manager of the University of Guelph’s Bee Research Center, reiterated this concern.
Honey bees are crucial to Canadian agriculture, he said. “About a third of the food we eat, and it’s the most nutritious and delicious component of our diet, is pollinated by bees.”
“Fruits, seeds, nuts, fruits, vegetables – all of these things benefit from bee pollination.”
But in the last few years, it has been harder for farmers like Decubber to find hives to rent.
Losses of honey bees have increased since about 2007, according to Kelly. This is a trend that worries Decubber.
“It’s going to have an impact, you see, it’s been hard to get the beehives we need this year,” said the cranberry farmer.
Paul Kelly said honey bees are very important for agriculture because they fly from flower to flower, pollinating fruits and vegetables along the way so they can produce a crop. (CBC)
Decuber said cranberry growers would have to find alternative solutions, such as using beehives. But even that is not ideal, because beehives have significantly fewer bees than hives with honey bees, he said.
One long-term solution Decubber is working on is trying to attract natural pollinators by planting local shrubs around cranberry swamps.
But in the short term, Kelly expects fruit and vegetable growers to see a shortage because so many beekeepers have lost their bees this year.
He said these beekeepers would have to borrow hives from other producers to meet demand.
“This will be a big challenge for the beekeeping industry and could also affect the pollination service,” he said.
A devastating winter for many beekeepers
Quebec beekeeper Sebastien Laberge lost 70% of his bees in the winter. (CBC)
Sebastien Laberge is a third-generation beekeeper and honey producer who runs La Miellerie St-Stanislas with his family in Saint-Stanislas-de-Kostka, Que., About an hour southwest of Montreal.
Laberge lost 70% of his bees in the winter. This is detrimental to his business because half of his income comes from renting his bees to blueberry, apple and vegetable pollination farms.
“Every day we receive calls about blueberries or cranberries. “We just don’t have bees right now to make a deal,” he said.
Laberge is not the only beekeeper to feel the sting this season. Many other beekeepers in the province and Canada came up with unpleasant surprises when they opened their hives this spring.
The mite varroa, a parasite that kills bees, is thought to be the main culprit in the country’s loss of bees this year.
Monoculture, the cultivation of a crop, also weakens the health of bees because it provides them with only one source of nutrients.
Quebec beekeeper Sebastian Laberge said his bees had not been killed by varroa mites and suspected environmental challenges. (CBC)
Laberge believes that other causes may contribute to their reduction: pesticides, fungicides and climate change.
“It’s a bunch of different environmental problems that probably killed our bees.”
Laberge said he was lucky to be able to secure bees imported from Australia to rebuild his hives.
But he estimates there will be a shortage of about 10,000 hives in Quebec this year alone.
“At the end of the day, we will all be at a loss if nothing changes,” he said.
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